Utah's Speaker Warns That the "Temporary" Goshute Site Could Be Permanent

Utah's Speaker Warns That the "Temporary" Goshute Site Could Be Permanent

Jun 29 - The Salt Lake Tribune

Nuclear energy industry officials told a group of lawmakers from around the nation Tuesday that making Yucca Mountain a permanent storage site for nuclear waste is an "important national priority," and of "critical importance."

They touted the public's desire for more nuclear power plants and the safety of transporting and storing spent nuclear fuel. "Yucca Mountain is the path forward we see in dealing with this material," said Steve Kraft, director of waste management for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

But before the industry heads down that path, Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis pointed out, up to 44,000 tons of the waste may rest in Utah's West Desert, site of a proposed temporary storage facility on the Skull Valley reservation.

"We can call it interim, but it could end up being 200 years," Curtis warned, noting that Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of energy companies pushing to store spent fuel rods on Goshute Indian land, is poised to get a 20-year license with an option to renew it for another 20.

"Why is anybody naive enough to think they wouldn't just renegotiate it [for longer]?" Curtis added.

Tuesday's meeting with lawmakers from the National Conference of State Legislatures mainly dealt with Yucca Mountain, the proposed storage site for the nation's spent fuel that has been frequently delayed and may not operate for a decade, if ever.

But Curtis occasionally turned the topic to PFS, which may serve as a storage site until Yucca is operation. Or, as Curtis fears, it could permanently hold nuclear waste.

"In 40 years, most of us won't be here," he said. "We're taking the problem and sticking it with the Goshutes. We're letting my children deal with it, and that's not a solution."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is poised to approve a license for the Goshute site this summer if Utah loses its last administrative bid to oppose the storage in Utah.

Earl Easton, a senior-level adviser on transportation for the NRC, told the group there is no automatic renewal of a license, and the Goshute site, if approved, would have to apply for its renewal. Asked what would happen if the license wasn't renewed, Easton said he guessed the nuclear waste would have to be moved.

"We've never come to that situation, to be honest," he said. "I don't know of a situation where we've ever terminated a license."

Easton clarified later that most licenses haven't come up for renewal so there wasn't much history.

Curtis, the only Utah representative at the meeting, said he is not a "fan" of the Yucca Mountain proposal, especially because it appears to him that the nation's plan for taking care of its nuclear waste is to find the least populated area and dump it.

"The state ought to have a say in it," Curtis said after the meeting. "If Nevada doesn't want Yucca we shouldn't force it down their throats. And if Utah doesn't want it, it shouldn't be shoved down our throats."

-----

To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com .

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.